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Case ref:201005151
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Date:March 2012
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Body:The Highland Council
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Sector:Local Government
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Outcome:Upheld, recommendations
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Subject:child minding and day nursery
Summary
Mr C complained to the council about an incident involving his granddaughter, where a misunderstanding amongst social services staff left her unsupervised during an outing. A Social Work Complaints Review Committee (CRC) was subsequently convened to consider the complaint.
Mr C then complained to this office that he did not receive a copy of the Social Work Services' report to the CRC members until two days before the hearing. The submissions for both parties to the complaint are required to be issued to the CRC members at least seven days before the hearing. Our enquiries revealed that the council wrote to the members, appending all submissions, four days before the hearing. They were unable to explain why this had happened and, in the circumstances, we upheld the complaint.
Recommendations
We recommended that the council:
• apologise to Mr C for the delay in issuing the relevant papers in advance of the CRC hearing; and
• remind staff of the importance of adhering to the relevant timescales when arranging CRC hearings.